Pragmatism and the Somatic Turn: Shusterman's Somaesthetics and Beyond

Abstract

Evidence of a somatic turn in contemporary thought is increasingly diffi- cult to ignore. There is the “embodiment movement” in philosophy, most associated with the writings of Mark Johnson, George Lakoff, Eugene Gendlin, and others.1 Earlier, rather different, attention to the body was given by feminist theorists, including Elizabeth Spelman, and, in the wake ofFoucault’s genealogies ofthe body, Judith Butler, among others.2 More recently, work being done under the sign of “the affective turn” attends to the body in novel ways, as do thinkers elaborating various “new materi- alist” and posthumanist positions.